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I still think that rank 4's aren't great to focus on with the deck. It's why myself and others I believe have stopped using the armageddon engine and focusing on the big monsters that control the board. Jeff's deck that topped is actually very close to what I'm using and what I think the deck does best at right now. In his build he focused on consistency and magic adbuctor in order to fix your hands. In what I'm running I simply dropped the abductors for what people have been testing of 2 OE unicorn and 1 OE Light Phoenix. From here I dropped summoner's art as you shouldn't need them anymore in theory, and ran a third avian, trump girl and upstart. Basically the goal of the deck should be;

going first to drop a kirin and apex/vortex/totem bird, failing that kirin/ monster with effect negation or red-eyes flare for the burn.

If we go second ( which I usually pick if I win the die roll) you have a decent amount of cards as well as dragonpit/ pulse to help break boards, and archfiend eccentrick to assist them.

I've been thinking if we could possibly get away with Maxx "c" in here at 2 or 3, the card is pretty good right now and to have one alongside kirin/ avian makes it such a disadvantage for the opponent, either them ending there turn or trying to have one while you draw cards. However creating a board like that as well as having the hand trap could be rare, and possibly detract the consistency of creating scales or boards.

As for my stance on dracopals and wizard, They are a decent engine, but I think the room it takes up detracts the deck to what I said earlier. This isn't necessary wrong and could be the right way to go with the deck, but I think dracopals with sky iris in it is instead a better deck, then a magician deck with a small draco engine in it.

And to swartstrom specifically, why as rap tap said, and also why no trish if you're going to play amra engine, that is probably one of the best reasons to play it still for the instant trish play.

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I've been playing with cards from the upcoming structure deck for a couple of weeks now, and honestly the deck is just bonkers. I can't think of an appropriate adjective to describe how powerful this deck can be.

All of a sudden, we have a pendulum archetype that has the tools to beat Twin Twisters and counter traps within its own engine. Through Chronograph Sorcerer, Astrograph Sorcerer, Odd-Eyes Fusion, and Aleister, we have a good amount of non-pendulum plays we can be making to bait out defensive cards so we don't run into those beefy Solemn Strikes as much. The deck is consistent, capable of ending turn one with multiple defensive outlets, and more than able to OTK the opponent (with removal via Pendulumgraph of Spacetime and Dragonpit) on the following turn. You're all going to lose to this deck sooner or later.

1x Number 24: Dragulas the Vampiric Dragon
1x Number S39: Utopia the Lightning

1x Number 39: Utopia

1x Startime Magician

1x Castel, the Skyblaster Musketeer

1x Abyss Dweller

Some explanations
Q: Why no Violet Poison and Black Fang magicians?
A: They aren't nearly as powerful as the rest of the cards they gave us. Violet Poison has a few niche uses, such as outing Vanity's Fiend-esque cards, and destroying an additional card when launched through Pendulumgraph of Spacetime, but the former is a rare occurence and the latter is achievable through Startime Magician. As for Black Fang, it requires an opponent to control a monster to destroy itself, and there are rarely any targets in the grave. We want our pendulums in the extra deck, and if they hit the grave, we want to banish them for Eidolon Summoning Magic. We still don't know what Supreme King Dragon Zarc does, but with such a hefty summoning requirement and requiring such sub-par cards in the main, I don't see it being worth it.

Q: Why Odd-Eyes and Eidolons?
A: Odd-Eyes entered the build to help fix my scales, a problem every pendulum deck faces (not to mention Persona Dragon is pretty good). The Eidolons work very well in the deck because they give your Terraformings much more utility, and put a DARK Spellcaster on the board for Iris Magician's effect, which wasn't a huge problem before, but it was kind of annoying having to normal summon cards that weren't Joker to do this, or summon monsters to the field with Chronograph/Astrograph. And hey, these Eidolon cards are good!

Q: Pendulum Call?
A: Pendulum Call is an amazing tutor, but it doesn't let us resolve Iris Magician for the entire turn! Considering that the strongest plays in the deck involve Iris, this is a little strange. Pendulum call is very good for searching Tune Magician before you pendulum summon, provided that your hand already sucked and you didn't open Iris Magician.

Q: Luster??
A: Metalfoes have the luxury of being able to destroy Luster whenever they need to. We summon fours, sixes, and sevens, so a five scale doesn't really cut it, and with Sky Iris at five copies in a 42 card deck, I don't like my odds of drawing them both together. Luster on Iris Magician is kinda broken, but if you noticed, Astrograph Sorcerer serves that exact same purpose.

Q: Odd-Eyes Pendulum Dragon???
A: Odd-Eyes Pendulum Dragon is a vanilla on the board, a tutor that takes a whole turn, and the worst possible scale. Sometimes, we can't free up space to activate it in the first place.

Q: Bunbuku?!?!?
A: Not a DARK Spellcaster. In order to resolve Iris Magician before the first pendulum summon (always correct), we must either normal summon a DARK Spellcater, or special summon one via the Sorcerers. Just wait until you drop Aleister, feel the power.

Q: But how do you win?
A: Just keep summoning monsters and destroying their defenses! There are many non-pendulum plays to be made in a single turn, as well as many ways to pick apart backrow. There is no one play that the deck has, it's very freestyle. All of the "scripted combos" involve Wisdom-Eye and Oafdragon. They're super easy to figure out, so I won't bother explaining it here. Play a couple of games, you'll get the hang of it.

You can turn off Caligula by overlaying with the Aleister you added to your hand after fusion summoning

Oafdragon + Tuner makes Leo or Nirvana High Paladin

Summoning Evilswarm Nightmare has never been so easy (if you play it)

If pendulum summoning for game wasn't enough, almost any two monsters in the deck can summon Performage Trapeze Magician

This deck is crazy fun, has a steep learning curve, and some of the most powerful and versatile extra deck monsters in the game. It'll make waves. By the time the cards actually exist, the builds may look way different than mine; I chose to build with so many engines to test and showcase all that the deck is capable of. Try it out if you have the time, let me know what you think!

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I'm gonna try and merge this with the other magician discussion so we don't have 2 archived.

That said, I think you're wrong about Black Fang in this build, you even point out that you want your bois in the extra but Summoning magic banishes them off the field meaning that Pendulum Summoning Oaf is the only way to recur them if you fuse out of hand or you're kinda contradicting your own theory. Especially if you plan to grind out multiple pendulum summons, Black Fang just helps you hold that advantage.

And I'm p sure you're just spooked by Pendulum Call not working with Iris Magician in scale, which is pretty silly to me when you consider the fact that you can still manuever ways to pop it whilst it's in a monster zone.

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There are very few scenarios in which you're banishing magicians from the field, or sending them from the hand, and not banishing them from the grave. You don't really need to recur every single magician, but if you must, Omega can return them to the grave.

Putting Magicians in the grave is more of a pro than a con, since it actually turns on Oaf. There are no combos that need all three Iris, or all three Tune Magician, but adding them to hand in a situation in which you would normally recur nothing is nice.

I very rarely have tutored Black in testing. It feels like a Cyber Dragon, when I just want a Gofu. There's lots of reasons why it could be useful, and I challenge you and anyone else to prove me wrong, but my stance has been stated.

There is actually only one way to destroy Iris in the monster zone, and that's with Sky Iris, which should probably be destroying Scales before your pendulum summon instead. You can't use Wisdom-Eye or Iris before or after you activate Pendulum Call, which is actually a huge deal since you want to be activating those cards as much as possible.

PS: thank you for merging my thread, I hadn't noticed a deck discussion for Magician.

As for Oaf and grave set up, that literally sounds exactly like it synergizes with Black Fang. That's not to say Black Fang is better than the other 42 cards (although I think it is just straight up better than Dragonpit, who is a relic of the past and Allure which I'll get to in a second) but playing more copies of oaf/Black Fang seem justified if you want to dump magicians in grave, especially if you consider Black Fang gives immediate value to the cards to combo with while Oaf just condenses the resources for your follow-up.

In addition, I didn't think about this before, but Allure seems kinda trash if you aren't banishing dead Aleisters, since all your other DARKs are pendulum combo pieces and you want to draw into more pendulum combo pieces anyway. It's probably much better to just play more pendulums in that slot as opposed to drawing into the few unsearchables you play (most of which you can just play more copies of because hey actually are searchable)

And uh, you will Draw 1 or more of either Wisdom-Eye or Iris Magician and the 1 Pendulum Call 4.54% of the time in a 40 card deck. in a 42 card deck, this conflict will come up .4% less, and that ignores the percentage of the time it goes down because you don't have Sky Iris. Additionally, searching Iris and Normal Summoning him to pop with Sky Iris is a real thing that also lets you go off and you can potentially play other cards that let you pop Iris Magician without using the pendulum effect, I'll be looking into those later as well. Doomstar Magician is one but idk how effective it is. So yes, you are literally just spooked of drawing one of the only kinda sorta brick combinations in your deck. You're more likely to draw a combination of 2 or more of the 4 pendulumgraph cards you play (6.9%) or the 1-of dead Eidolon Fusion (12.x%).

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I kind of agree that Dark Fang is superior to Dragonpit when the two are compared. They share the same scale, and play similar roles. Black Fang, rather than destroying defensive cards straight-up, aims to extend your plays further and bait out their defenses instead. It's level four, and doesn't require you to discard a card. It only falters in that Dragonpit can destroy opposing scales and continuous cards, while Black Fang can not. Dragonpit proved invaluable against more trap-heavy decks, but it may be better suited for the side than the main.

Allure of Darkness has always been a uniquely useful draw spell. While cards like Sacred Sword of the Seven Stars in Dragon Rulers and Trade-In in Blue-Eyes served to dig deeper into the deck while advancing your game state, Allure doesn't really advance your game state much at all, as decks that play it rarely benefit from vanishing a dark monster.

Even so, historically, many decks that have a high count of dark monsters play all allowed copies of Allure (see launch-Blackwings, Infernity, Tele-Dad). It'a true that all of your dark monsters are important, but it is also true that some are more important than others. I'll gladly banish drawn Odd-Eyes and 'gazer monsters if it means I see more copies of my more important elements of the deck.

Allure is so special because it allows you to see your draws before you decide what to ditch, and I think all decks that can support it should be playing some number of the card. Since nearly half of the cards in the deck are dark monsters, I feel that the deck can support all three copies.

I am spooked about drawing Pendulum Call with my Iris/Wisdom/Joker. And the likelihood of this is very low. But I am also spooked about drawing Pendulum Call after turn one, or two, in which the deck aims to destroy cards in the scale to continue its plays. When you have a hand that can resolve multiple Iris Magicians/Wisdoms, do you play Pendulum Call anyway, and go with a weaker play? Or accept the brick?

None of the cards in the deck become weaker if you remove Pendulum Call; it's unsearchable. But it ensures that you have a scale, much in the same way that Sky Iris does, and dumps a magician in grave for Eidolons/Oaf (but not Dark Fang, since it can't be destroyed). I can't think of many scenarios in which destroying a monster on the field to resolve it's effect would be correct, since we want to be using these monsters as special summon materials.

There are many pros and cons to this card, and I'm in no position to fully accept or condemn it. As it stands, how I see the deck now, I can't find any cards that are explicitly less useful than Pendulum Call.

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The thing about those decks and Moderns decks, when it comes to Allure is that those decks had excess cards you can ditch, being extra Normal Summons you can use to clear your hand to draw into unsearchables. Magician doesn't have excess cards, everything except additional Aleisters and occasionally Odd-Eyes Mirage is a combo piece you can make immediate use of, and the unsearchables you'd be drawing into don't exist in that build, since you can just add Additional copies of anything you feel you'd need to make use of. It's very similar to the debate of Allure in BA, where you're banishing BA monsters to draw into more BA monsters as opposed to using that BA to make additional Dante. It's a card that seems good on paper but really the card is just not that strong compared to just playing more copies of your power cards/combo pieces (Racoons, Oaf. Black Fang ;), More Aleister/RMC).

I also agree with siding Dragonpit, at least for the moment. It's kind of hard to predict the field when we don't know when we'll get these cards and what will exist, but I imagine it'll be in the same format as True Kings (and the mirror obv) so Dragonpit's value drops a lot if these decks don't main hard traps.

Originally this deck dropped the absolute nuts when Iris could pop itself T1, triggering Astrograph + Iris and ending with Ages + Spacetime and double Startime boards. While no longer the case, this only means that we have to find alternate ways to pop Iris T1. The deck lacks defense outside of Rank 4s, so searching Spacetime remains a crucial component towards this deck’s success. This leaves us with two options:

These engines are similar as both provide you with scales while being able to pop a card during the process. I chose the Zoodiac engine for the following reasons
-Provides defense Turn 1 as Drancia can hit normal summons and Field Spells
-Viper is an alternative means of removal, non-target banish
-When going second provides another summon layer before pendulum summoning as well as baiting ASF and Dimensional Barrier
Not having to “draw” Drancia as you can access it whenever you have 2 Level 4s in your Extra Deck, even allowing you to access Rat if you have a normal summon available
-The obvious “free” Rank 4 with the Molmorats
I cannot see “Extra Deck investment” as an actual con against playing this engine. There are few other monsters I actually go into outside of Startime and Ignister. Sky Iris does nothing comparatively with more or less the same amount of maindeck investment. The only argument in favor of Sky Iris is being able to maindeck other Field Spells, such as Secret Village and Reckless Summon Magic, with little investment.

The 2 Scale, Dragoons of Draconia
You can also include Performapal King Bear as a searchable high scale, but certain things come up in relation to setting up Pendulumgraph of Spacetime and Iris
Spacetime requires a face-up Magician to pop and it is preferable to target a scale as often your normal summon is consumed. If you cannot place a Magician as a scale as a result of placing King Bear and Dragoons as scales, then the alternative is to pendulum summon a magician face-up. However, this conflicts with the Zodiac engine at times since, between Drancia and Bullhorn made off the Rat combo, you only have 3 zones left. ⅔ of the remaining zones are required for Startime Magician so if you resolve an Astrograph or need to PS a Kirin, Spacetime is “dead”
The scale 2 comes up more often as Iris is a Scale 8 and a pendulum summon is sometimes required for Drancia to pop Iris afterwards and search Spacetime

This line-up of magicians is self-explanatory, as Startime can only be made with Pendulum Magicians I see no reason to not max them out. Black Fang is interesting as it allows you to play through Strike, as well as Violet Poison being able to out boards when going second. Tune Magician is one of the best cards in the deck as it is a 1 card Ignister or Startime which allows you to create a board with a smaller Pendulum Summon.

The only level 4 Magician I did not include was White Wing. Her only useful effect is the scale effect which I can see come up when going second vs Zodiac or Kirin. At the moment, she just appears to be a vanilla and lacks the DARK Spellcaster typing for Iris and Startime as well as a maindeck requirement for those fond of summoning Zarc. The card’s Tuner status isn’t even unique as Tune Magician exists and has a much a better monster effect.

OCG Decklists, while scarce at the moment, will not reflect Duelist Advent until MACR comes out next January. These targets perform the best as far as I can tell, however I have not compared each properly despite recognizing that certain cards compete with each other when searching for them. I am still able to point the following niches:
-Luster Pendulum chosen for the ability to replicate scales ie. placing a level 4 in the extra for free, while also triggering Astrograph and Iris to supplement Zodiac Triangle and Drancia. Obviously, do not search this if you have no low scale available.
-Pendulum Call chosen for its ability to search low scales if I have Iris already, making it comparatively better than Master Pendulum as Call can search Tune Magician to PS alongside a completed scale (White Wing as the low scale when I originally played the card, Violet still fulfills the same role).

Due to the deck focusing on Rank 4s, I don’t consider Astrograph as powerful as the rest of the cards. Astrograph at least replenishes itself whenever you destroy Iris or Violet with either Dracoslayer or Sign so one can consider this card as another copy of a Magician with the requirement of 2 card combos. It shines in the mirror as Astrograph counts the opponent’s destroyed cards, therefore functioning as a pseudo-juggler to sponge damage and replace itself.
I prioritize searching Spacetime over Ages when given the choice, but like Astrograph I play Ages at 3 with the remaining spaces due to acting as a copy of Insight or Tune Magician at worst. Normally, I would play Ages at 1 copy as it does not function as a scale and requires 2 other cards to trigger (with the exception of Normal Summoning Timebreaker Magician and using its Monster Effect) but the Iris + Astro T1 combo no longer applies to ease triggering Iris.

Filler

http://prntscr.com/ds133j
After establishing the core of the deck, I have no idea what else to play so I chose to play Desires, Upstart and Kirin in absence of immediately powerful cards. Some ideas I have for the flex spots I will mention through the following:

Timebreaker, mentioned earlier as a way to trigger 3 Ages while outing monsters such as Drancia or baiting Spacetime in the mirror. The idea would be to play 1 copy of this as Duelist Advent → Pendulum Call would make for 5 copies. Level 3 works alongside Tune Magician in order to summon Meteorburst.

Bunbunku, additional copies of Kirin, however I believe that, as a Normal Summon, it will compete with Zodiacs.

1 Aleister the Invoker + 1 Caligula + 1 Eidolon Summoning Magic
This is most likely my next inclusion as Startime Magician can search Aleister as long as I can Normal Summon. Should I draw the Fusion Spell, I can mill Aleister off Startime. Caligula and Drancia or the Pendulumgraph trap perform a soft lock which would increase my board’s “nuttiness.” However, the board still remains weak to Raigeki/Dark Hole with the exception of the trap.

The Zodiac Package takes up the bulk of the Extra, a 2nd Broadbull played to Xyz with the Molmorats after searching a scale and overlaying a Drancia on, leaving me with a 2 material Drancia with the ability to freely pop Iris after using that Broadbull to search Viper. Admittedly, the 2nd Broadbull would come up more if I played King Bear.
The 2nd Drancia rarely comes up outside of a surviving Zodiac Xyz, so a legitimate contender for the chopping block.

http://prntscr.com/ds13ga
Lightning, Trapeze, Daigusto, and Dweller constitute the “staple” package. Castel does not seem required as Drancia performs a similar niche and I have access to Ignister, while less likely than most Castel summons, to shuffle floaters into the deck. Lightning and Trapeze allow me to OTK when given the chance. Dweller bodies the True King matchup when going first.

http://prntscr.com/ds13np
I don’t think Number 38 comes up often outside of giving you something to do with a Dracoslayer when not already placed as a scale. I’m thinking of making room for Stardust Dragon or other synchros.

I only play 1 copy of Startime as you only need it face-up so Pendulumgraph of Spacetime pops 2 cards and you can revive it with Black Fang should you need it again. Going for a second Startime usually means you have your Pendulum Summon has been consumed and in most cases you search a Normal Summon you cannot take advantage of or a damage modifier such as Violet/Black Fang as a Scale.

Edited January 6, 2017 by Berdversary

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How much use are you actually getting out of Astrograph? I feel like you could probably drop it in favor of other cards like most OCG players have, as it's pretty much just dead weight on the field due to not being level 4.

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I dont think deadweight is as powerful as an argument against Sorcerer as the fact that it only participates in 3 card combos.

There are a few times in which this occupying a Zone matters, such as 2 Zodiac Xyz + Astrograph + 2 remaining zones which cap you at Startime Magician. You can still field another card after via normal summon Aleister

It is worth noting that in most cases Astrograph still acts as a level 4 monster as it searches out a Magician.

As I said before, Astrograph Sorcerer and Ages share the same trait of being only useful in 3 card combos and lacking the Magician name while still allowing me to maximize on magician cards. I already think its one of the weakest cards in the deck.

OCG lack Kirin, so the space can easily go towards playing 3 Bunbunku. This would reduce some weakness to slumber (which is Pendulumgraph of Spacetime mitigates a little) Dark Hole that other boards without Stardust Dragon are weak to.

As for cards that OCG plays, outside of user-generated lists we only have like 6 examples which I don't think are worth looking at as those lists do not include Duelist Advent.

Realistically though, this deck is built on an imaginary format and built without taking into an account a future banlist so the most I can really talk about is some matchups (completely theoretical data as YGOpro is full of unpolished decks) tl;dr what OCG has already caught on to in establishing a basic framework.

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Bumping this thread due to recent events. Thoughts on this deck for forthcoming events? I for one still own all my cheap magician structure deck so this was pleasant news to me that I (and others) have another decently budget deck they can run at their WCQ.

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i have seen the news, and holy shit am i excited. i was literally thinking last night how sick it'd be if they were playable in the future, and with the unrestrictions, as well as support in MACR and the next pack, things looks pretty good.

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As crazy strong as the Supreme King Dragons are, those are coming out post-Links. Though idk, maybe this deck's engine is strong enough to still function even after Links. 3 Skullcrobat and 3 Pendulum Wizard is pretty insane.

Anyone think of any decent Performapal search targets for Pendulum Wizard that work in Magicians? There's a new level 8 one coming in July (2 weeks before Links) that's also an Odd-Eyes monster and can fuse with anything in your monster or pendulum zones so that lets you play odd-eyes vortex without actually having to run odd-eyes, but as a level 8 you then rely on its own summoning condition since you can't Pendulum it. Anything else doesn't seem to have that much synergy.

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theres also odd eyes synchron which can sync with a scaled Oaf Dragon for ignister or make Horus (sets up Nirvana High Paladin if u wanted to) for a normal summon

also useful post pendulum since it can turn an earth ppal into a level 1 monster using its scale effect and sync with sorc for Nat Beast (alternatively turn sorc level 1, sync with rat summoned off Chakanine)

Edited May 19, 2017 by Berdversary

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As crazy strong as the Supreme King Dragons are, those are coming out post-Links. Though idk, maybe this deck's engine is strong enough to still function even after Links. 3 Skullcrobat and 3 Pendulum Wizard is pretty insane.

Anyone think of any decent Performapal search targets for Pendulum Wizard that work in Magicians? There's a new level 8 one coming in July (2 weeks before Links) that's also an Odd-Eyes monster and can fuse with anything in your monster or pendulum zones so that lets you play odd-eyes vortex without actually having to run odd-eyes, but as a level 8 you then rely on its own summoning condition since you can't Pendulum it. Anything else doesn't seem to have that much synergy.

Bubblebowow is a lv6 with oaf to make rank 6's, as is king bear, who's effect is also decent to search a lv7 or higher from grave/ extra. We also have Sky Magician now, who's got a decent removal effect and is lv7 for rank 7's. Magician's left hand and right hand can be used/sided for match ups to make the opponent waste cards to use the ones they want, and multiple face up can be brutal. They also work with majespecters still if people for whatever reason run them.

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Ok so since nobody is talking I guess I'll try and start things off here. Only couple days away before NAWCQ and figured we could we a little discussion.

I've been working on possible fields with starting hands. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has figured some stuff out so I'm not taking credit or anything.

This is a 3 card combo, seeing and you play 3 of it all (as well as the cards you end up searching) I do not think it's that hard to open with. But if someone knows percentages and could tell the likelihood of opening it that would be great. Also assuming no disruptive cards by opponent.